Now we've done it, and you can, too!

Hello, we hope you're having a wonderful weekend. Here's what we did this morning. We worked out with Team Beachbody coaches Martha Kosmeh and Catherine Teague. Marge and I decided to re-invest in our own health and fitness and also to incorporate the business-side of Team Beachbody into Quantum Results Coaching.  We have also found that many of our clients are also interested in health, fitness, and life balance. Therefore, when we learned about Team Beachbody's fitness and nutrition products and met some local people who are doing extremely well as Team Beachbody coaches, we took it seriously. We invite you to watch the short (just over 5 minutes) video below that features the founder of Team Beachbody. In it you'll get a sense of his passion and the greater purpose he is working toward. Just click the big yellow PLAY button on the photo below to watch the video. If you'd like to chat with either of us about the Team Beachbody products or the business, please give us a call. You know we'd love to talk with you.   So now we have the whole package in our coaching practice. As we work with people on personal development and business growth and profitability, we can also offer information and a connection to: home fitness products with the greatest brand recognition (because of all the infomercials) and results (because they they work) in the country; top nutrition products including the hands-down, no question most complete core nutrition/energy drink/weight loss shake on the market; and a business opportunity where the time is right, the need is immense (literally, since it targets overweight and obesity), and the marketing has already been done. Marge and I have both started using the meal replacement shake (Shakeology) which has quickly become not just the healthiest, but also our favorite meal of the day. We've also been using the low impact fitness workouts that come with Shakeology and have gone to a weekly class put on by some other local Team Beachbody coaches.   If you'd like to chat with either of us about the Team Beachbody products or the business, please give us a call. You know we'd love to talk with you. To your joy, success, and health!

Bruce and Marge Brown Quantum Results Coaching 2013 Olde Regent Way, Suite 150-103 Leland, NC 28451  910-297-8753

Change Is Simple, Right?

Can we hear a big "NOOO!!!"?

Change is not simple.

For change to really stick, for new learning to actually make a difference, we have to take it through several stages.

Here's a quick graphic of my current understanding of change:

Our friend and teacher Brian Klemmer wrote a wonderful little book, titled If How To's Were Enough, We Would All Be Skinny, Rich and Happy. He's absolutely right?

We could spend some time breaking this down and working through each step. But let's not. I think it's simple enough and  would love to hear your comments.

In the meantime, let's all have patience with ourselves and with others when great change doesn't  happen just because someone hears about something that is good for them.

And just because someone (including ourselves) says, "Yeah, I'm going to do that.", it doesn't mean it will really stick. And that's not because people are misled, or misleading themselves, or not getting it, or weak, or whatever. I only means they haven't worked through all the stages yet.

So let me know what you think about what I just wrote and about the graphic. I'd really like to know.

Thanks,

Bruce

More on Consulting and Coaching

If you're wondering whether you need to hire a consultant or a coach, or even if you're deciding if you'd rather BE a consultant or a coach, or possibly both, here's some more helpful info.

Clearly  I'm not the only person with experience and insight into these fields. Tim Berry, a former business consultant who now much prefers the role of coach recently posted a helpful differentiation on his blog.

Here's the link to his post, Read This Before Hiring a Coach or Consultant.

Good  stuff  there if you're making a decision.

Counseling, Coaching, or Consulting.

Yesterday I explored the difference between counseling and coaching on this blog. Because of some interesting questions and comments, I decided to add another element, consulting, for consideration.

So bring it on, folks, I'd love to hear your reactions to this one.

Is It Coaching or Is it Counseling?

This question often arises, sometimes stated this way, "What's the difference between coaching and counseling?" Here's a quick response: One helps you get over your pain and back on track, while the other helps you reach your potential and attain your dreams.

As someone with experience in both fields, I'd like to address this question, along with the disclaimer that I do not have a counseling practice nor am I licensed to do so in my current state of residence, North Carolina.

I was an active counselor in Connecticut, however, and for several years was on the graduate faculty of Saint Joseph College and taught courses and supervised graduate students enrolled in counseling programs for Masters and advanced degrees. I'm also a member of the Cape Fear Psychological Association, but the primary purpose of that alliance for me is knowing local counseling or mental health professionals for referral purposes.

I coach, and consult, but I do not counsel.

Phew! So with that out of the way (and sorry if it seems belabored, but in these days it's necessary), let's get briefly into the basic differences between counseling and coaching.

The graphic below (which I'm happy to provide in PDF format on request) shows my take on this dichotomy. Just as some coaches (mistakenly) think their coaching skills, training, and experience enable them to counsel folks (it doesn't), it's also the case that counselors aren't by virtue of their training and experience prepared to be good coaches. There are overlapping skills, for sure, and as the graphic below indicates, at times the goals of the client overlap the two professions, but they really are different.

If your life isn't working and you're in pain, you likely should see a counselor.

If your life isn't all that you want it to be, sounds to me like you could connect with a coach.

Some folks have both, btw, a coach and a counselor. And it's best in those cases when there can be some mutual communications (as allowed and advisable by professional standards and the law, of course).

So if all these words so far are a lot of blur, just check out the graphic below and hopefully that will answer your question.

Thanks for help with the concepts in the graphic to Ray Smith, btw, my friend and former partner in the West Hartford Counseling Service, which we started together in 1979 along with Jim Leary.

Janis and Dolly - Same birthday - Same emphasis on Purpose!

I was pleased to discover this morning that Janis Joplin and Dolly Parton, icons of American music, each expressed strong thoughts on living a life of purpose.

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
- Janis Joplin, born January 19, 1943

"Find out who you are and do it on purpose."
- Dolly Parton, born January 19, 1946

Happy birthday, ladies, and thanks for your music and for your words on purpose.

What's In It For You? - Why I Just Launched Five Digital Newspapers!

How are you at keeping up with news and stories in your main interest area? The Internet is great and Google and Wikipedia are wonderful research tools I use all the time. But sometimes I get lazy. How about you?

Sometimes I just want a quick, easy, inexpensive (free is best) way to keep up with topics I'm interested in, personally and professionally.

So during December I discovered paper.li, a free (for now?)  digital publication utility that "organizes links shared on Twitter and Facebook into an easy to read newspaper-style format"

Note: paper.li is currently in "alpha" release, which is pre "beta", which means it's a work in progress - so far I've found as long as I stick to just papers generated from Twitter, it works fine, the Facebook version I haven't gotten to work yet (as of 1/4/11).

So anyway, my friend and Mastermind partner D'Vorah Lansky focuses on book marketing so she has a paper.li newspaper called The Book Marketing Daily, which she started in November.

I live in the Wilmington, NC area and the merchants here put out a paper called The locally-owned-ilm-biz Daily which any local area could do. (I think it's a cool idea).

So after I noticed those two papers, I decided to start one of my own, and then took it just a bit further, I set up five. (Note: I realize I put out a lot of info, but nothing I put out locks anyone in, always easy to unsubscribe or just not sign up - I don't take it personally; but hey, I have a lot of interests and I love to share.)

So the five I'm currently publishing, each of which reflects one of my professional interests, are:

Networking Events Daily

 Living Life on Purpose

 Relationship Marketing Update

The Law of Attraction at Work

Personal Power with Self-Hypnosis

(Note, the links for each of the above take you to the latest 'issue'.)

What are they? A paper.li newspaper is automatically generated by the software that searches every article, video, image, audio file, whatever that's linked in posts in Twitter or Facebook (like I said above, so far I haven't gotten the Facebook part to work, and would particularly like to have the ability to combine links from both to create one newspaper for each topic - for me 5 is fine, 10 is too many - so even I have limits, lol.)

All you have to do is enter some search times that you want your paper based on, give your paper a title, and then get it started. You can also set it to automatically update Twitter when you publish and set the publication time for each day. Mostly you do nothing and it's put out daily. People can subscribe, they can get an RSS feed, and they can also embed the code for the newspaper in their own blogs or websites. There are a few Google ads from paper.li in each paper but I don't find them bothersome.

How Well Does It Work? Overall I'm pleased and impressed. Not every article really fits my specified area of interest, but most do maybe 80-90%. So that's great for my purposes, and a small (but growing) number of folks are subscribing to my papers as well - sometimes I'll Tweet about an article I think is particularly interesting or helpful, and sometimes put an update and a link on Facebook as well.

One thing that's cool is that (in the Twitter-based) people who's links I've included in the papers (and remember it happens automatically) notice their material is there and often thank me, which is a great way to meet nice people with shared interests and expertise.

Also, my latest Tweets and updates and an archive calendar for the paper are automatically included on every issue, so that's helpful, too.

So What Can You Do? If you're interested in one or more of the areas I'm covering (see above), just click the links and subscribe and choose to get daily updates. Or start your own paper.li digital newspaper.

I don't know if it will always be free (I have a suspicion there may be different levels including a basic, free version), but it is for now and for me it's a great way to quickly check each day for new and interesting material.

If you're already using paper.li I'd love to hear your opinions or experience.

Broccoli vs Shrimp and (I can't believe it either) Broccoli Won!

So an odd thing happpened at Chez Brown tonight.

And I'm here to tell the whole sorry tale (but worry not, I'll keep it short).

It started a week or so when Yahoo! News had a feature article called something like, "7 Wonder Foods That Are Really Good for You that You Should Have in Your Kitchen".

Well, at the top of the list was broccoli (which I had to check how to spell for this post, it's two "c"'s, one "l". So anyway, when we went grocery shopping a couple of days ago we bought some broccoli and brought it home. I figured, "Cool, with broccoli in the kitchen we'll both be healthier!"

Somehow I hadn't made the connection that you're actually supposed to eat the stuff.

I thought maybe it was like garlic and vampires. You know, you just keep garlic around (I think you're supposed to wear it on a cord tied around your neck) and anyway, vampires supposedly will give you wide berth. So, we had broccoli in the kitchen, and f'sure it would look really stoopid threaded on a cord and worn around your neck so I assumed that like on the shelf in the kitchen would do the trick. Or maybe in the refrigerator. You know, out of sight!

Hey that's an idea, maybe it could be like baking soda. Just shove some broccoli in the back of your refrigerator and it will make all the other stuff like butter and bacon even better for you. (Do ya think?)

Anyway, it being New Year's Day and all we wanted to have a good meal to celebrate the new decade so I told Marge I'd make Shrimp & Grits, which, if I say so myself, I do up pretty well.

And Marge dropped the bomb, "Okay, and I'll cook up some of that broccoli."

Gulp.

So we kind of discussed it a bit. I posited that if we actually ate it then we'd have to buy more in order to have that "healthy food in the kitchen" that Yahoo! was so insistent about.

But yeah, Marge won.

So here's the deal. I made up the Shrimp & Grits with my usual recipe (email me for it if you want it). And it was good. I use a lot of cheese in the grits (and real butter), and bacon and scallions and some other stuff plus I dose my own serving with a hefty dollop of Marie Sharp's habanero sauce. So it was excellent.

Except for the shrimp. I used some "back of the freezer since can't remember when" shrimp and it was okay, as in not spoiled or anything, but it was sorta tasteless and a little rubbery.

But the broccoli? The broccoli rocked! I know I've never had broccoli as good and I don't think I should count on ever having it as good again (maybe we really should go back to the keep it in the frig for the good of the other food strategy), but Marge's broccoli was outasight. I even finished (a few) extra servings on the theory that it was so good right in the moment that leftovers would be a disappointment.

So the broccoli clearly won.

Do I feel healthier? Hmm, not sure. Yet, but let's say Yes just to keep the peace and end the story.

And, oh yeah, there was a goodly portion of Shrimp & Grits left, so, even with the tired shrimp, I know what I'm having with my 4AM coffee. tomorrow.

Happy New Year Everyone!